2006 R52 JCW. 98000miles. Thinking of installing strut tower plates and figured I should change struts while I'm in there. I see coilovers from $300 to over $2000.. I don't race and like the ride hight where it is. Come October the car goes to my daughter for school transport.
keeping cost down what are my best options? I didn't even look for stock replacements but am heading there now.
Thank you. John

 

Coilovers are great if you want to lower the car and/or track it but if it's only street-driven stay with stock replacements. The Mini is stiff enough as it is. RockAuto has great prices (~$80 ea.) on stock Monroe strut/spring assemblies. Rears are really simple to replace; fronts a bit more complicated but easily done if you can spin a wrench.

 

My vote goes to a quality aftermarket strut like a non-adjustable Koni or Bilstein. You’ll get exactly what you pay for if you buy something cheap like a Monroe.

 

A Bilstein B4 is $80 for the shock. I've tried them and didn't like them. Nothing wrong with Monroe. It's a good brand, been around for years and I've never had any issues running them on everything from a Mustang to a Corvette to a Mini. Key part of DFTR's post is that his Mini is destined to be his daughter's school commuter car and simply needs to be reliable. Konis are overkill.

 

Exactly. That’s why I didn’t recommend something cheap. I’ve had generally poor experiences with cheap dampers and wouldn’t put them on my daughter’s car. I may be biased from living in a city with crazy drivers and bad roads though, so I’m very **** about suspension, brake, and tire performance. Panic stops and emergency lane changes on shitty struts are frightening.

 

I'd look at just replacing the struts, the springs should be fine. I have koni FSD (now called special active) struts, and the ride is fantastic, but I think they were $600 for the set, on sale. I'd probably look at bilstein replacements, they're reasonably priced and generally quality units. I had some bilstiein B8's on my previous mini with H&R lowering springs. I wasn't thrilled about the ride, but I think that had more to do with the springs than the struts.

Cheap coilovers will be a headache, and quality coilovers are over kill unless she's going to be autocrossing (which might be a good strategy to keep her away from the boys...)

 

deleted

 

I realized I should explain my reasoning a bit more. I was pretty tired yesterday when I replied, so I was a little short. I'm sure cheap dampers will be fine for a while as far as safety is concerned, but I've also seen them fail pretty quickly. On some vehicles, like my dad's truck for example, it's really obvious that the dampers are bad because they truck bounces all over the place.

My opinion is that the mini disguises bad struts pretty well in normal driving. It's already stiff, there isn't much suspension travel, and it corners on the bump stops. If the Monroes give out in 20k miles, you might not know it until you need to make a dramatic maneuver, at which point your life could get exciting real fast.

But, like I said, my opinion is colored by having lived in the Atl for 15 years, where no matter how defensively you drive, someone will still manage mess up your morning commute. It's also a city that is hell on struts. My OEM ones were trashed when I replaced them at ~65k miles, and I try not to drive into every hole in my path.

 

Koni FSD if you're not looking for a drop and just want improved comfort/performance/renewed parts. Change the mounts and all hardware at the same time.

 

I am also a big fan of the Koni FSD/Special-Active setup. Koni really stepped up with this design in a very ‘systematic-approach’ to providing a very noticeable performance enhancement while actually minimizing NVH and improving comfort.

They are a considerable performance enhancement for the car that retains the ride height and suspension travel that is already lacking on street-driven MINI’s

Check our this thread for more thoughts on the FSD’s .

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...n-general.html



Motor on 🤟









.